The West Wing is set to return to Netflix UK this month, five years after being removed from the service in the US.
The classic series originally ran on NBC between 1999 and 2006, and follows the White House under fictional US President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen). It has since become a touchstone for political dramas and is regarded as one of the best TV shows ever made.
Now, all of the show’s seven seasons are reportedly set to hit Netflix on December 9, according to The Independent, having recently been available to stream via Channel 4 in the UK.
The West Wing was created by Aaron Sorkin, and also features performances by Rob Lowe, Dulé Hill, Richard Schiff, John Spencer, Moira Kelly, Stockard Channing, Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford.
The latter two – who portrayed C. J. Cregg and Josh Lyman – recently reunited in the third season of Netflix political thriller The Diplomat, where they play spouses Grace and Todd Penn.
Last year, Sorkin admitted he was considering rebooting The West Wing as he marked the show’s 25th anniversary at the White House.
“I didn’t think about it seriously, frankly, until today… We’ll see what happens when I wake up tomorrow,” he told Variety. “But, if you’re asking me now, this is how I feel.” He continued: “I just got a couple of ideas for episodes just walking around the White House. Like, ‘Why didn’t we ever do this? Why didn’t we ever do that?’”
Speaking before Donald Trump was re-elected as US President a few months later, Sorkin also reflected on how he could affect a revival.
“It would certainly present incentives to do it, but also headaches,” he said. “The worry would be that everything we did on the show would be seen as a rebuttal to the world of Donald Trump.”
The writer previously suggested that it would be “implausible” to make the Republican Party look “reasonable” if the show were made today.
“People would watch that and it would be unfamiliar to them as the country that they live in,” he said. “On the show, while the Republicans were the opposition, they were reasonable, the Republicans that they dealt with.”